TEACHING RESOURCE PACK FOR ADDITIONAL LEARNING RESOURCES AND VIDEOS, PLEASE VISIT AMONSTERCALLSTHEPLAY.COM/LEARNING CONTENTS Creative Team 3 Content by and with thanks to Susie Ferguson, the Old Vic Education Team, Synopsis 7 Michelle Kass Associates, Christopher Elmer-Gorry Themes 9 Design MUSE An Interview with Benji Bower, Composer 11 Production Photography MANUEL HARLAN Characters 13 Further details can be found at Classroom Activities 14 AMONSTERCALLSTHEPLAY.COM Portraying Grief and Loss 23 f @AMONSTERCALLSPLAY Bibliography, Further Reading & Media 25 i @AMONSTERCALLSPLAY t @AMONSTERPLAY Glossary 26 Support 28 A MONSTER CALLS TEACHING RESOURCE PACK 2 CREATIVECREATIVE TEAM TEAM PATRICK NESS SIOBHAN DOWD Author of ‘A Monster Calls’ Original Idea Patrick Ness is the multi-award winning author of Siobhan Dowd was born in 1960 to Irish parents. ten books for adults, young adults and children. Brought up in London, she started her career A Monster Calls, inspired by an idea by the late working in New York City for International Siobhan Dowd and which Patrick also adapted PEN, where she lead the Rushdie Defence for the screen (2016, starring Sigourney Weaver, Committee and was named one of the ‘top 100 Liam Neeson and Felicity Jones), is published in Irish-Americans’. On her return to the UK, forty languages. The first in his Chaos Walking Siobhan co-founded English PEN’s readers trilogy is currently filming with director Doug and writers program and went on to serve as Liman (Bourne Identity) and starring Tom Holland Deputy Commissioner for Children’s Rights in (Spiderman) and Daisy Ridley (Star Wars). Patrick Oxfordshire. Siobhan only started to write herself has received numerous accolades for his writing, when she was invited to contribute a story to an including the Costa Children’s Book Award, anthology for children about racism. She went on the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and the to write four award-winning novels, celebrating Red House Book Award, and was the second the publication of A Swift Pure Cry and The London ever author to win the Carnegie Medal twice Eye Mystery but Bog Child and Solace of the Road and the first to win two years in succession. He were published posthumously. Waterstones had created and wrote the 8-part BBC Doctor Who only just named her one of the top ‘25 Authors spinoff Class and as a screenwriter has written of the Future’. She died in April 2007 aged just for Fox, Lionsgate, Heyday, Warner Brothers 47. In her final days Siobhan set up The Siobhan and Entertainment One. His latest book, And Dowd Trust to use the proceeds of her work to the Ocean Was Our Sky, was published to critical fund reading projects for children. acclaim earlier this year SALLY COOKSON ADAM PECK Director Writer in the Room Sally Cookson trained at LAMDA and worked Adam is a playwright, dramaturg and librettist. as an actor for ten years before embarking on a He has been an Associate Artist at Bristol Old freelance directing career. Her theatre credits Vic since 2013. Work includes the Olivier award- include The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe winning A Monster Calls (The Old Vic); The (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Bridge Theatre); Jane Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Elliot Harper Eyre (Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre); Peter Pan Productions and West Yorkshire Playhouse); the (Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre/Troubadour OFFIE-winning and Olivier Award-nominated White City). She is an associate artist at Bristol Cinderella: A Fairytale, 101 Dalmatians, Bonnie & Old Vic, where other productions include Sleeping Clyde (Tobacco Factory Theatres); Igloo, Sleeping Beauty, Treasure Island, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Beauty, Medusa, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Minotaur, Papa Please Get the Moon for Me, Clown, Strange Only (Bristol Old Vic); Varmints (Sadler’s Wells); Case, Pericles, Pains of Youth and The Visit. Her Fagin’s Twist (Avant Garde Dance); the My First numerous collaborations with Travelling Light Ballet series (English National Ballet); Father theatre include Strictly Balti, The Ugly Duckling, Christmas (Lyric Hammersmith); Septimus Bean Boing!, How Cold My Toes, Shadowplay, Cloudland, & His Amazing Machine (Unicorn Theatre). He Lenny and Bob the Man on the Moon. Other theatre is currently developing a new musical with John includes One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Ali O’Hara and Sally Cookson. Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cinderella: A Fairytale (Tobacco Factory Theatre, Olivier Award nomination); La Strada, Hetty Feather (Olivier Award nomination); We’re Going On A Bear Hunt (Kenny Wax Productions); Romeo and Juliet (The Rose Theatre); Stick Man and Tiddler (Scamp Theatre). A MONSTER CALLS TEACHING RESOURCE PACK 3 MICHAEL VALE BENJI BOWER Set Designer Composer Michael has designed the sets and costumes for Theatre includes: A Monster Calls (The Old Vic); over 200 theatre and opera productions both in Tom (Sadlers Wells); La Strada, Hetty Feather the UK and abroad including those he has directed. (West End/Kenny Wax); Peter Pan, Jane Eyre (Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre); The Lion, Companies he has worked with include: The Royal the Witch and the Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Shakespeare Company; The National Theatre; Playhouse); Sleeping Beauty, The Boy Who Cried The Royal Opera House; English National Wolf, Treasure Island, Papa Please Get the Moon Opera; Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Opera for Me, Aesop’s Fables (Bristol Old Vic); We’re North; English Touring Opera; De Vlaamse Going on a Bear Hunt (UK/World tour); Outpost, Opera, Antwerp; Los Angeles Opera; New One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Cinderella, Ali Zealand International Arts Festival; The Ibero- Baba and the Forty Thieves, Ugly Duckling (Tobacco American Theatre Festival in Bogota; Hong Factory Theatres); Orpheus and The Furies, Table Kong Academy for the Performing Arts; Galaxy of Delights (Damfino Theatre). Television includes: Theatre, Tokyo; Warsaw Globe Theatre Company; Panorama, Horizon, Countryfile, Autumnwatch Munich Biennalle; Lyric Hammersmith; The (BBC). Royal Court; Almeida Theatre; Soho Theatre; Manchester Royal Exchange; Birmingham Rep.; West Yorkshire Playhouse; Sheffield Crucible; DAN CANHAM Northampton Theatre Royal; Liverpool Playhouse Movement Director and Everyman; Bolton Octagon; Nottingham Playhouse; Old Vic Bristol; Old Vic London; Dan Canham is a contemporary performance- Plymouth Theatre Royal; Edinburgh Royal maker and choreographer. Through his company, Lyceum; Oldham Coliseum; Manchester Library Still House, he makes socially engaged work that Theatre; Oxford Playhouse; Salisbury Playhouse; foregrounds under-heard stories and celebrates Colchester Mercury Theatre; English Touring those performing at its heart. Theatre; The Royal Festival Hall; The Queen Elizabeth Hall; The Sage, Gateshead; Wales Movement director credits include: A Monster Millennium Centre; Battersea Arts Centre; Calls, (Old Vic/Bristol Old Vic), Peter Pan (National Linbury Studio Theatre; Amici Dance Company; Theatre) Jane Eyre (National Theatre/Bristol Old Fuel; Hi-Jinx; Spymonkey; Kneehigh Theatre Vic) The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe (West Company and Told By An Idiot, with whom he is Yorkshire Playhouse/Eliot Harper), Romeo + Juliet an Associate Idiot. (Rose Theatre Kingston) 101 Dalmatians (Tobacco Factory Theatres), Shooting with Light, Voyager His work has received one Olivier Award and been (Idle Motion) Once Upon a Time (Aga Blonksa) nominated for three further Olivier Awards; an Solo two (Tassos Stevens). Irish Times Theatre Award; a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award a Charrington Fringe First For Still House: SESSION (LIFT festival, NT Award and two Off West End Theatre Awards. Riverstage), Of Riders and Running Horses (Tbilisi Theatre Festival, Shanghai Theatre Festival, NT KATIE SYKES Riverstage, Dance Umbrella, Mayfest), 30 Cecil Street (Sadler’s Wells, PuSh Vancouver, Brisbane Costume Designer Festival), Ours Was the Fen Country (National Theatre as Set and Costume Designer includes: Theatre Shed, Dublin Dance Festival). Swallows and Amazons (York Theatre Royal); Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona Performing credits include: A Matter of Life and (Shakespeare’s Globe); Hetty Feather (West Death (National Theatre), To Be Straight with End); Romeo and Juliet (Rose Theatre, Kingston); You (DV8 Physical theatre) The Bacchae, Tristan Cinderella: A Fairytale, 101 Dalmatians (Tobacco and Yseult, Brief Encounter (Kneehigh Theatre) Factory); Chloe and the Colour Catcher, Antigone, Rite of Spring (Fabulous Beast/ENO), Faust World Cup 1966 (Bristol Old Vic); La Strada (punchdrunk) Agnes and Walter (Smith Dance (Coventry Belgrade); Up Down Man (Salisbury Theatre) Mother Savage (Travelling Light). Playhouse); The Wind in the Willows (Mercury Colchester); Boing! (Sadler’s Wells/Unicorn); Into The West (New Victory, New York); Cloudland, How Cold My Toes, Mother Savage (UK tour). Theatre as Costume Designer includes: Jane Eyre, Peter Pan (National Theatre); Treasure Island, Sleeping Beauty (Bristol Old Vic). A MONSTER CALLS TEACHING RESOURCE PACK 4 AIDEEN MALONE The Passion, Michael Sheen's Port Talbot Easter Epic, Lighting Designer 100 The Day Our World Changed, set in the The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall. Theatre includes: Death of a Salesman (Young Vic); Princess and the Hustler (Bristol Old Vic); Jack Lear Over the last 10 years, Mike has worked closely (Hull Truck Theatre); The Worst Witch (Royal and with Stage Sound Services as Sound Designer Derngate); Much Ado About Nothing (Watford and Project Manager, working on various